MEGA SAMBA
The MegaSamba festival is an event organized by Grupo Recreativo Escola de Samba Bota de Sesimbra, which usually takes place every year on the last weekend of July in the wonderful town of Sesimbra.
​Sesimbra, a fishing village located just 40 km from Lisbon, is one of the main tourist destinations in Portugal, recognized for its vast historical heritage and gastronomy, where the unique quality of its fish, its beaches with calm waters and a perfect symbiosis between the sea and the Arrábida Natural Park.
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In addition to all this, Sesimbra is also known today for its samba tradition.
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Find out more about Sesimbra at: visitsesimbra.pt
With a history of more than 40 years and a collection of around 200 compositions that over time set the different plots of different carnivals to music, Sesimbra is today a rhythmic melting pot marked by the carioca samba of the schools and the Bahian rhythms expressed by the your axé blocks.
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To open its doors to the world, the G.R.E.S. Bota has promoted throughout its history (since 1976) several initiatives to exalt samba, promoting communion between peoples of different cultures, where its MegaSamba festival represents its maximum expression.
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At the moment MegaSamba is already considered one of the most important cultural events in Europe and a reference of its kind.
The idea of creating MegaSamba comes from the fact that a member of G.R.E.S. He emigrated to Switzerland, where, through sharing experiences and interaction with other sambistas from that country and from other countries in central Europe, the vision was born of holding an event that would unite percussionists from all over Europe and perform in village of Sesimbra in the form of a mega batucada – the MegaBateria.
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In the years following its creation, in the course of its natural process of evolution and growth, the event incorporated new ideas, shaping its organization, form, identity and evolved to other levels. MegaSamba has become a festival currently characterized by its eclecticism, with the main objectives of conviviality, sharing of knowledge and experiences, and friendship between people from different countries around the universal culture that is Samba.
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With the initial purpose of only bringing together percussionists from different countries in a MegaBateria, MegaSamba is today much more than that, as it unites composers, singer-songwriters, percussionists, choreographers, dancers, Mestre-sala and Porta-bandeira couples, as well as other representatives of schools of samba from different parts of the world.